Abstract

Between 1900 and 1920, there was a tense debate surrounding the establishment of a British bank in the Persian Gulf with special attention paid to Bahrain - a small but significant location in terms of grand strategy and commerce. After years of multilateral negotiations between a plethora of variegated groups and a messy ensemble of intertwined and discrete interests – a branch of |Eastern Bank Ltd. was established on the island. The purpose of the bank was ostensibly to facilitate trade between Britain and British India, as well as global trade passing through the Western Indian Ocean. However, what this paper shows is that the establishment of this bank is intimately tied to the processes that underpin British Imperial consolidation in the Gulf via a slow but steady encroachment on other modes of economics, exchange, and life. Through understanding British concerns and vantage point, and thinking economy and political economies of the region through a historical lens, we can begin to see capitalism as a concept, and some of the assumptions associated with it, dilate and dissipate. The arrival of the bank does not represent the arrival of capitalist modernity or embody the ideals of economic liberalism - it is first and foremost a tool of empire, employed at a moment where control over capital and commodity flows are quickly becoming the conditions of possibility for political control.